Accolade for an intelligent monitoring tool

The project: Renewing the cooling water supply system

2017 saw ContiTech invite tenders for the renewal of the cooling water supply system at its Hanover Vahrenwald factory. The company planned to refurbish and modernise the cooling water system in the entire factory, as well as making it energy-efficient. The work included the renewal of pumps, motors, frequency inverters, shut-off and non-return valves; the installation of prefabricated piping; the construction of pump foundations and baseplates; and the removal of the old pump sets.

The customer: ContiTech

Hanover-based ContiTech is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of rubber and plastic products outside the tyre industry and is part of Continental. In 40 countries, the technology company’s 46,000 employees develop and produce functional parts, components and systems for almost all sectors of industry and commerce and combine them with individual services.

The challenge: Intelligent, reliable and secure monitoring solution

It was planned to implement an intelligent and above all reliable and secure monitoring solution to continuously monitor the operation of all pumps and to report potential irregularities in good time before a failure actually occurs. A further challenge was the fact that production at the Vahrenwald factory runs almost around the clock, only stopping for few national holidays. The tender specified that work on the pump systems had to be carried out during ongoing operation without any downtime in production.

The solution: Experience and highest safety standards

When submitting its quotation, KSB was able to refer to its many years of experience and a full range of services as a single-source supplier. A further advantage is that KSB operates a global network of service partners. In its subsidiary Dynamik-Pumpen GmbH, KSB has a reliable and experienced service company available locally and able to provide services around the clock if needed at a later stage.

When drawing up its detailed design implementation plans, Dynamik-Pumpen GmbH went beyond the stipulations set out in the tender documents. After receiving the order, KSB’s specialists made an extensive analysis of the old system. This yielded further important details which complemented ContiTech’s well thought-out specifications and enabled KSB’s experts to maximise the reliability, security and energy efficiency of the entire system while staying within the budget.

As to the choice of pumps, KSB decided to opt for the high-performance Etanorm, the world’s best-selling standardised water pump. It is known for its impressive efficiency and extremely robust and durable motors. Etanorm was supplemented with PumpDrive, a frequency inverter that dynamically adapts pumps’ output and speed to actual demand, making them extremely energy-efficient and reliable to operate. In addition, Etanorm features extremely smooth running characteristics which met ContiTech’s requirement to significantly reduce noise levels on site.

In order to meet the requirement of removing old and installing new equipment without interrupting production, KSB supplied large prefabricated piping sections that could be integrated with the pumps, valves and other components already on site to replace the old equipment.

All areas at ContiTech are subject to strict regulations and guidelines. But having to meet demand criteria is nothing new for KSB pumps and valves, and these products are generally well ahead of their time in terms of meeting exacting standards.

The OK for the installation of KSB Guard came immediately. The security measures integrated into the KSB Cloud and all hardware components proved 100% convincing because they guarantee a level of security comparable with online banking by using maximum data encryption and actively blocking potential external attacks.

But what makes KSB Guard so unique? The innovative and easy-to-install monitoring system includes sensors that detect irregularities in KSB pumps and third-party products before a malfunction occurs so that major damage and failures can be reliably avoided. Registered users can access all pump status data (e.g. temperature, vibrations and load condition) around the clock via a web portal and are immediately notified by e-mail if any deviations occur. 

The system operator benefits from predictable and less frequent downtimes, better maintenance strategies and significantly reduced operating costs for a relatively modest investment.

Data I Facts I Figures

System:
Cooling water supply, Vahrenwald factory

End user:
ContiTech AG

Project data: 

• 6x Etanorm 100-80-315 with 45kW synchronous reluctance motor, PumpDrive and KSB Guard